Recent reviews by Asthoren

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There's a lot of hype around this game, and I would just like to say it is well deserved.
I haven't cared this much about an RPG since The Witcher 3. 10/10.

Pros: Karlach is a fiery puppy with horns who bonks really well. You can talk to cats. Even better, you can be a cat.

Cons: Your friends and family will not see you for a while...

Blood for the blood God! (Well, at least when the blood pack becomes available :D)

I really love how involved the campaign is. Usually campaigns in Total War games are pretty bland, but here, I actually felt like I was in control of an early medieval kingdom. Annoying nobles that rebelled at times, my bloody neighbour claiming the right to my throne, food shortages and diplomatic incidents... Felt like Crusader Kings with Total War battles, something that I always really, really wanted.
Only downside is that the AI is still not great. Didn't find it hard to beat armies twice my size/strength regularly. But there sure were a lot of them, so the war with my huge neighbour was still challenging. Especially as him and his vassal kept raiding my farms causing my armies to starve... The bastards! :)

I am very sad that a lot of people are leaving bad reviews due to them not likeing the changes in 2.0. I think the game is heading the right direction, and fully support the dev team (having closely followed the development process) in their vision of Stellaris.
Yes, some systems need some tweaking, but patches to address the most pressing issues are being rolled out already. I've liked Stellaris before, and as of 2.0, I like it even more.
Huge kudos to the devs for not being afraid of making large and risky changes!

First, I love this game.
Second, I noticed the mixed reviews on Steam and felt a bit indignant.
I understand it is a reflection on the marketing strategy of CA (i.e. the price of the DLCs), and not the actual gameplay that merits negative ratings in the eyes of many reviewers.
I would however like to respectfully disagree. Yes, the DLCs are expensive. Yes, they could be cheaper. But then again everything everywhere could be cheaper; but that's not how capitalism works.
The question, in my eyes, is whether the price is worth the product. And I think in the case of most of the TW:WH DLCs the answer is a resounding yes.
The WE and Beastmen DLCs are great. They add fully fleshed out, unique factions to the game; I don't think that constitutes a cash-grab. I was satisfied with the product I got for the price I paid, and I can hardly wait to pay for the next faction pack (Tomb Kings, I believe, as Bretonnia will be free).
King and the Warlord and The Grim and the Grave are a bit overpriced perhaps, and having access to the extra units and regiments of renown are essentially "pay to win", so it would be nice if they could be turned off in campaign and if everyone had access to them in multiplayer regardless of owning the DLCs, because that's how it would be fair. Now it feels like you have to have the relevant RoR DLCs if you want to play a faction. I see this as a problem, but not large enough not to recommend the game.
To be sure, CA isn't doing everything perfectly, but overall, I'm pretty satisfied. And I feel a truly good game, one that I can happily sink a lot of hours into, is worth a lot of money to me. Much better to spend 80+ pounds on a game I play 200+ hours on, than to pay 30 pounds on a game that ends up as a disappointment. That's why I earn that "hard earned money" after all...

I've played 300+ hours of BNW, but got bored of BE after about 30 or so.
I think Tising Tide makes the early game of BE much more interesting, and gives it a unique vibe.
So I would cautiously recommend it even though it costs a lot, and still has multiple issues that I think Firaxis should address.

Pros:

Diplomacy overhaul - a great idea, it gives character to the factions, and provides you with a bunch of strategic choices, and gives you the ability to costumize your faction. I don't like how you can't set terms though.

Aquatic cities - they do play differently than land cities, with advantages and dissadvantages.

Marvels - they make every biome unique (though some are more interesting than others.)

Artifacts - they are pretty cool.

New aliens - it's nice, but still doesn't address the issue of them kinda just being in the way. The new way in which they get agressive (when you pillage a nest) is quite nice. I would still like different biomes to have different species.

Hybrid affinites - the models look awesome, and the unique units are nice as well, but hybrid affinites is essentially a way to upgrade basic units faster (and some basic units - aircraft, siege, submarine - don't even have hybrid upgrades). They don't introduce unique perks, only unique combinations of them.
Plus cities don't have hybrid arts, so half of your units and your cities will have one arts style, while the rest will have a very different one.

Cons:

Alliance bug (this will probably get fixed soon) - if one of your allies declares war on a player you automatically declare war on the as well, however it doesn't work vice-versa. If a player declares war on you, your allies won't help.

War Score system - this sounds good, but in practice makes it impossible to make peace with anyone. If you win the war by a large margin, you will automatically set peace terms, where the AI has to give you 2-3 cities. The AI won't accept this, and you can't change the terms.

Energy - I feel it is pretty useless now that you can't even use it to trade with the AI and that Diplo Capital can be used to buy units and buildings in the same way. You can use it to buy plots (very useful for water cities) and pay for improvements. And that's sort of it. (Building and unit upkeep, and purchasing aside.) Especially since improvements that cost energy are slow to build and are outclassed lategame by farms...

Victory - I still feel that victory conditions are too similar (they're essentially all science vitories) and are kinda boring.

In summary, I do think this is a step in the right direction, but I hope further patches/dlcs/expansions will address some of the remaining (and newly introduced) issues.